


Perchance To Dream

by Suzie_Shooter



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, Dreams, F/M, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Nightmares, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 02:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1209928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzie_Shooter/pseuds/Suzie_Shooter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Athos dreams of Milady, but it's Porthos who is there for him on waking.</p><p>
  <i>"The nights with the pleasant dreams are the worst."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perchance To Dream

The nights with the pleasant dreams are the worst. 

Athos is used to nightmares, has watched her hang in his head so many times that every straining, choking second is etched forever on his soul, in far more vivid detail than any true memory could provide. His punishment, both for the act, and for his cowardice in not staying with her to the end. No, Athos is used to nightmares. 

Besides, nightmares make him shift restlessly in the bed and these days Porthos is there to wake him, feigning grumpiness at being disturbed but holding him unfailingly close, never asking what demons they are that follow Athos into sleep.

No, Athos has come to long for nightmares. Because the alternative is worse. The alternative is to dream of her as she was: smiling, beautiful, loving. She's in his arms, soft warm skin against his chest, or walking with him though an endless summer evening, the scent of flowers in her hair. His heart is quickened with love for her and everything is as it once was.

And there is no quick release from this dream, no rough shaking at the hands of a new lover to save him from its poison. Athos sleeps on, and in doing so remembers what it was to be truly happy. 

So much the crueller when he finally wakes, and remembers afresh that all is dust and ashes.

Those used to be the days he couldn't so much as rise from his bed, couldn't face the world in all its harsh reality. And yet, for a while now the faintest of hopes has been worming its way into his shadowed heart, almost without him realising. 

At first he resented the fact Porthos refused to let him wallow in his self-pity, would force him to get up, to spar with him, to go riding, to _live_. Gradually though, Athos has come to depend upon it as heavily as he once did the wine, has come to rely on the fact Porthos gives him his reason to be, on the days he can't find it himself.

The mornings when Porthos wakes to find Athos with silent tears on his cheeks, he holds him closer still, never questioning, and somehow, despite everything, Athos still lives.


End file.
